Seeing as it's New Year's Eve tomorrow, it seems about time to get on with my #teacher5aday pledge for 2017. I've already blogged my reflection on my 2016 pledge, so here goes:

#connectNow I've been in my school for a year, I have settled into some routines, not all of which are positive. One thing I think I should do this year is to try and visit the staff room more often and get to know more people. I don't think I've done an awful job so far but I could do better.

I also intend to get to know more of the people who I follow, and who follow me, on twitter. Now the masters is done I think I'll be able to network a bit more than I have been up until now.

#noticeI find this one the hardest, setting targets of posting a positive tweet or taking a picture every day often fade away quickly. I think the best I can do is say that I will try and notice more of the positives and share them, not just on twitter but at home too.I think maybe I'll read some other pledges for better inspiration here.

#volunteerI have signed up with Age UK to make a weekly call to an elderly person who would benefit from having someone to chat to. It sounds like a great programme and I'm looking forward to being involved. I didn't think I could commit to visiting someone weekly, but figured that I can always find 30 minutes for a phone call.

#exerciseAh, so the gym didn't go that well this year. Surprise, surprise! We have cancelled the membership we had in favour of doing things at home. This will probably have to wait until we move house in the new year. I got some exercise kit for Christmas including a mat and some weights so I'm ready to go! I may even join my parents for the Park Run every now and again as I quite enjoyed the Santa fun run I did this month.

#learnNow I've finished the masters I can get on with something else! I'm using Duolingo to learn a bit of Italian before I go on the school music tour in the summer.

I also intend to read and write more this year. I spend far too much time needlessly flicking through my social media feeds or watching something I'm not actually interested in or have watched a million times before. I plan to bring this to an end and use this time to read, I have a stack of books already and a wish list on amazon that is growing. With all this reading comes some reflection, I am going to take part in #weeklyblogchallenge17. I think I'll find this tough, but hopefully I'll see some improvement in my writing by the end of it.

A summary of my MA Education dissertation.

I posted the other day that my copy of my dissertation had arrived and a number of people expressed an interest in reading it. I've shared it with a couple of people, but I'm holding off of putting it online until I have the MA certificate in my hands and it's all 100% confirmed, as I'm sure you can understand. What I have decided to do is summarise the dissertation here along with my key conclusions in the hope that it may be of use to some. Please do let me know if you read this post and if anything is useful for you.

Please be aware that I know that this research is not perfect, I know that it is not the best written, and I understand that it is flawed. I am not presenting this as a perfect example, or something that I am expecting others to follow. This is only being posted following requests from those that may be interested in it for their own use.

All references will be made available when I upload the full document in early 2017.

In 2016 I wrote this post on my pledges for 2016. Initially I thought I'd not really made much progress with them, but I've done some of the things I pledged.

#connect - I said I wanted to get to know people better at my new school. I've got to know my department well, and I go up to the staff room one breaktime a week. I think in the new year I should make a bit more of an effort with this, but it's a start.

#exercise - I started well with this one, I joined the gym when I moved into my flat. That's failed of late though and I've cancelled the membership. We are due to move in the new year and I have some plans for when that happens.

#notice - Ok, so this one I failed on. I was going to tweet positive things on a daily basis. I can't actually remember the last time I did this...

#learn - My learning pledge was related to my MA which I have now completed, thank goodness!

#volunteer - I've organised somethings in my department like I said I would, but now I'm second in department I don't think this counts as volunteerig anymore. Plus, I have been playing in the school jazz band but that is as much for myself as for the students so that doesn't count either. New ideas coming for 2017 though.

This term we have started the long process of raising the profile of languages in our school. We're trying to put on more activities, revamp the way we are teaching and generally promote the importance of languages throughout the school.

My MA dissertation was on the theme of the extended curriculum and how it helps to motivate students to learn languages, so of course this is a topic that I'm very interested in. I've tried to apply some of what I have learned completing the dissertation to help us, and I think it may be starting to have an impact. A teacher from another department sat next to me the other day and said 'you're doing a lot in languages these days, aren't you?' and that was enough to give me the hope that we've made a start.